Circa 2018, with the continued growth in shipments and deliveries of objects to residences and businesses, has been the parallel growth of the problem of “porch piracy”; wherein thieves, i.e., the “pirates” steal such objects delivered to the homes and businesses, typically because the given delivered object was dropped off by a carrier/shipper/delivery person in an unsecured manner.
The obvious solution of having a person to receive the delivery at the drop-off location (e.g., home or work) is simply not practical for many situations. One may be preoccupied at a time of delivery, being away (unavailable) from the drop-off site at a time of delivery, for a variety of reasons such as, being at work when delivery is expected at home or vice versa, being out of town, being on vacation, being indisposed (e.g., in the shower), etc.
Solutions other than having a person receive the delivery at the drop-off location generally have some form of enclosure at the drop-off location to receive the delivery into. To date these enclosure solutions have various other problems.
One such enclosure solution has been to install a bank of fixed and permanent lockers at a given drop-off location, i.e., various locker concierges, such as, but not limited to Amazon Locker. While this solution may be effective at the porch piracy problem, assuming the carrier/shipper complies and utilizes the bank of fixed and permanent lockers, this solution has a variety of other problems. In addition to the problem that such a bank of fixed and permanent lockers is very expensive to deploy, install, maintain, and use; there is the need for physical construction at the site for installing this bank of fixed and permanent lockers, which may include tying into an electrical power supply and communicating with network technologies. Construction means there must be sufficient physical space to accommodate installation of the given bank of fixed and permanent lockers; there must be local government approval (i.e., permits); installation requires expensive licensed contractors (e.g., electricians); there must be a sufficient budget to pay for the bank of fixed and permanent lockers as well as their construction and their subsequent maintenance; construction takes a significant amount of planning and time to implement; and there must an owner of the site to receive this installation who is willing and capable to undertake the project. Tenants and lessees, i.e., non-owners, would need permission from their given owner to make such construction modifications. This solution is likely not doable for a vast majority of single family residences, small businesses, tenants, and lessees because of such problems.
Another solution to the porch piracy problem has been to install effectively a pass-through specifically for deliveries at a given single family residence building or business building. Structurally, a pass-through may be very similar to a doggie door; and thus, have problems associated with doggie doors; e.g., that the pass-through may provide undesirable access to an interior of the building. This pass-through solution also has the same problems as the above bank of fixed and permanent lockers, such as, all the problems that go along with construction and retrofitting/modifying an existing building to have the pass-through.
Another solution to the porch piracy problem has been to replace an existing exterior access door with a new door with built in (integral) pass-through for deliveries. A disadvantage to this solution is the need to replace an existing exterior door. For example, tenants and lessees may not have permission to make a door replacement on the building they may be renting/leasing. Another problem, this solution may still require skilled crafts people (professional installers) to perform the replacement and installation. Also, the newly installed replacement door with pass-through may create problems with using the door as intended as an entry door for humans. For example, some expandable accordion pass-through structures may render a door effectively inoperable when expanded. And the newly installed replacement door with pass-through may be aesthetically unattractive, which may be a serious problem where the look of buildings is governed by local laws, CC&Rs, an HOA, and/or the like.
Another solution to the porch piracy problem has been to utilize a container/locker that is physically mounted to a porch/patio area outside of an exterior door. A fundamental problem with this approach is that the porch must have sufficient free space to accommodate a permanently mounted container/locker; and then once mounted, the porch is effectively now smaller due to the container/locker now permanently taking up some footprint of the porch/patio. Additionally, because there is mounting going on, professional installation may be necessary, which as noted above, is an additional undesirable cost. Additionally, if the permanently mounted container/locker does not match the existing décor, there may be compliance problems with local laws, CC&Rs, HOAs, and/or the like.
Another solution to the porch piracy problem has been to utilize a free-standing (non-mounted) container/locker on the porch/patio or proximate to the exterior access door. Regardless of sophistication of the container/locker lock, a fundamental problem with this solution is that the thief/pirate may simply just steal the entire free-standing container/locker because the free-standing container/locker is not anchored to the real estate/property/building/porch/patio.
Additionally, the currently used containers/lockers (whether free standing or permanently anchored to the porch/patio) have also been non-collapsible; that is, these containers/lockers only have a fully expanded/deployed configuration, which may always undesirably occupy some large footprint because they cannot be collapsed into a smaller footprint.
Another solution to the porch piracy problem has been to attach a package receiving bag, that has a lockable access opening, to an exterior access door (such as a front door). These bags are flexible/pliable, being made from fabric. These bags are attached to the given door via a strap. These bags have several problems. First, because the bag is flexible/pliable, it is easy to tell if the bag is empty or has package(s) in it; thus, a thief/pirate will have a positive visual indicator as to which bags should be attacked, i.e., the bags that look to have package(s) in them are targets for attack; whereas, with an opaque locker, the thief/pirate has no idea if there are any packages within. Secondly, these bags often hang from the top of the door, via their strap, which increases the bags visibility, compounding the first problem; but also because of hanging from the top of the door, the bag is considerably high off the ground making access to the bag difficult for both carriers/shippers and for the intended recipient, which may be compounded when the intended recipient is elderly, weak, and/or short. Additionally, due to the nature of being a bag versus a locker, the bag has the impression of being less strong and more flimsy, which may cause would be purchasers to look for an alternative solution that appears to be more secure.
Another solution to the porch piracy problem has been granting access to an interior of the building to the carrier/shipper when the owner, tenant, or lessees is not present. A fundamental concern with this solution, is that many owners, tenants, and lessees do not want (or cannot have) unsupervised strangers entering their respective buildings.
Another solution to the porch piracy problems has been to locate a “smart” scale on the porch/patio, designed to receive a package; and if the received package is then removed in an undesirable fashion (e.g., stolen) the reduction in weight on the scale may generate an alarm. This solution at best can only deter not prevent theft.
There is a need in the art for a solution to the porch piracy problem, but that does not have the problems of the existing porch piracy problems, some of which have been noted above.
It is to these ends that the present invention has been developed.